How to Find a Job for J-1 Summer Work and Travel: Pre-Placed or Searching in the US

Your job hunt starts at a different point depending on your passport, and a sponsor stands in the middle of every route. This page covers both routes, what a job offer has to show and where to look. The jobs hub links the rest of the working-life pages.

The short version

1. Check if you need a job before you enter the USA, which depends on your country.
2. Ask your sponsor to vet any job before you start.
3. Read your job offer for pay, hours and housing details.
4. Tell your sponsor if you find nothing after one week of searching.
5. Avoid any job that asks you to pay a recruitment fee.

Which route fits you: pre-placed or searching in the US

Students must be pre-placed in a job before entry, unless they are from a visa waiver country. The condition appears on the Summer Work Travel program page. Sponsors must provide pre-arranged, fully vetted employment to participants who are not from visa waiver countries. Check your country on the visa waiver countries page.

A job found in advance can come from the sponsor (direct placement) or from you (self-placement). The vetting duty is the same for both. A sponsor also must offer reasonable help later if you want to change jobs, whichever way you found the first one.

Pre-placed jobs: the steps from offer to DS-2019

Before the DS-2019 is issued, the sponsor must vet the employer, confirm the terms of the job offer and enter correct data in SEVIS, under 22 CFR 62.32. One sponsor, CIEE, runs a four-step process for its Irish participants:

1. Once an employer offers you a position, a job offer must be completed.
2. You submit the job offer to your J-1 agency for vetting.
3. The U.S. sponsor contacts the employer to review the offer. The employer provides an Employer Identification Number, a business license and workers’ compensation information.
4. If the offer is approved, the sponsor issues the DS-2019 and a visa interview can be scheduled.

Those steps are CIEE’s own procedure, not a rule for every sponsor. Starting in 2016, the two largest sponsors of the program in Ireland required Irish students to have a job vetted and approved before traveling. With a job secured in advance through CIEE, you can travel assured you may start working immediately on arrival. The full vetting rules are on the job vetting page.

Searching after you arrive (visa-waiver countries only)

Sponsors of visa-waiver students without a job must give them pre-departure information on how to seek employment and secure lodging in the US. They must also make sure you have enough money to support yourself while you search.

Three deadlines matter once you are looking:

• Tell your sponsor as soon as you get a job offer, because you cannot start until the sponsor vets it.
• The sponsor must confirm the job within 72 hours of your finding it.
• If you have not found suitable work after one week of searching, the sponsor must help.

Sponsors of these students must also provide a job directory with at least as many listings as participants entering without a job. They must make reasonable efforts to secure suitable work for anyone who could not find a job alone after one week. A job found after arrival is called an initial, replacement or additional job in the rule. All three need the same check before work starts. Second job covers the additional-job case in detail.

What a job offer should tell you

Your sponsor must explain all costs, conditions and rules of your exchange program, including, if applicable, a written statement of the work you agree to do, how much you will be paid and how many hours you should expect to work. Read it for these points:

• Pay. Participants must be paid at least the higher of the federal, state or local minimum wage, or comparable pay.
• Hours. Host employers must make good faith efforts to provide the paid weekly hours on the job offer.
• Deductions. Pre-arrival information must include wages and deductions for housing and transport.
• Housing and transport. If the employer provides either one, the offer must give the details and the cost to you.
• Overtime. Employers must pay overtime under State or Federal law.

A job offer that falls short of any of these is a reason to ask your sponsor before you accept it. The pay and wages page has the minimum wage rules.

Jobs a sponsor cannot place you in

Some jobs are off the list regardless of how good they sound. Sponsors must not place you in jobs that:

• Require you to buy inventory that you then sell.
• Require a license.
• Do not let you work alongside US citizens and interact with them regularly.
• Fall in another J category, such as camp counselor or intern.

Night work between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. and commission-only pay are also out. So are domestic help in private homes, vehicle driving jobs that need a license and clinical care with patient contact. The prohibited jobs page has the full list with the rule behind each item.

Where to look, and what to avoid

Your starting point is your sponsor. You take part by locating and contacting a designated sponsor, which is your main contact throughout the program, per the State Department’s how to apply page. Many sponsors can place participants anywhere in the United States, regardless of where they are based. The State Department page also links a map of Summer Work Travel participant numbers across the US and local community support groups.

CIEE tells its Irish participants to talk to friends and family who have been to the US, or to sign up for a job fair in Ireland. Jobs at those fairs are pre-approved by the sponsor. That is one sponsor’s advice for its own participants.

Watch for these warning signs:

• An employer asks you to pay a recruitment fee. Employers usually cannot make you pay one.
• The job sounds different from what was promised. False promises about the type of work, working hours, conditions or pay are among the lies and tricks the State Department’s pamphlet lists in its section on forced labor.
• A staffing agency is involved. Sponsors may place you with one only if three conditions are met.

If something feels wrong, the State Department lists 1-866-283-9090 for reporting abuse or exploitation, and the Wilberforce pamphlet explains your rights. Read the scams page before you pay anyone to find you work.